Thursday, July 29, 2010

19th Century Mayhem

One amusing aspect of the Glenn Beck Whow is that Mr. Beck provides a tunnel vision view of our nation's history where all of our troubles began with the 20th century.

It makes one wonder if there is something or someone in the 19th century that Mr. Beck wishes to hide.

Historically, 19th Century America had some really big troubles. These troubles included slavery, a Trail of Tears, a slaughtering of buffalo, brutality toward native Americans and a civil war.

On the international front, the 19th century saw the French Revolution devolve into genocide and Napoleanic wars. The Haitian revolution went south, etc.. On the intellectual front, the perverted philosophies of Hegel amd Marx came to the forefront and set up the brutal dictatorships of the 20th century.

My research traces many of the problems of the modern age to the 19th century.

The founders of our nation did a great job writing a Constitution, but they were not able to resolve the problem of slavery and created a free nation where some people owned slaves.

The generation after the US Founders was left trying to reconcile slavery with the Revolution. This generation of thinkers imported the new philosopies of Kant and Hegel and came up with some really bizarre notions.

It is in the first generations of American intellectuals that we see intellectuals adopting the philosophy of Hegel and turning modern liberalism into the opposite of classical liberalism.

The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand is a fun read that provides insight into 19th century American thought.

There were wild things going on in 19th century America. There were truly bizarre utopian societies, experiments with polygamy, financial schemes a plenty, and many questionable ideas from 19th century America.

Mr. Beck's insistance that 19th century America was a utopia is way off the mark. It really makes me wonder: Why is it that Mr. Beck wants all problems to begin with Teddy Roosevelt?